needle & thREAD

Please forgive me for the tardiness of this post. I was up all night binge reading! I finished three books this week. I had to tear myself away from books to squeak in a little sewing. I managed to put the border on this quilt, begun all those many moons ago for the Whipstitch Quilting Class (I highly recommend those classes, by the way. Deborah Moebes is an amazing teacher. I'm so, so tempted to take the fall wardrobe class. But then again, there's a good bit of wedding sewing to do this fall). I put the quilt away after finishing the mian body of it because my life was intensely busy right around Christmas and into early January. Then, I think I was afraid to work on it. I love this quilt and I have a fear that I'm going to get this far into the process and mess it up. So. Yesterday. The Border. All finished. Now I have to decide how to quilt it. Every square is different and I can't really imagine traipsing color or design over some of those blocks. Honestly, this is one I might take to the experts. I don't know. And yes, I noticed it's nearly Christmas again.

Now, about those books. I discovered Kindle on my iPhone. Oh the joy! I've got my nose in a book instead of mindlessly clicking through social media. And, I might be a little obsessed. Three books, people. And a good way into a fourth.

I read iDisorder on Kim's recommendation. I read Talking Back to Facebook (it was a needle &thREAD read of someone else's a few weeks ago). And I read 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.  I'm still listening to The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. To say that--together--these books are life-changing is not an overstatement. Just focusing on the Internet aspect, I'm blown away. In a good way, I think.

iDisorder is the most technical of them all (with The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains a close second). I read it all out of order, skipping from one chapter to another, trying to diagnose myself and everyone I love;-). I learned a lot. I highlighted a lot. I'd already put some practices in place before reading. The book affirmed for me the necessity for them. I was particularly interested in some passages about how we can read one negative comment and fixate on it, despite 20 others that contradict it. I've been living that lately. Heck, I've been living that since the first time I got online. Maybe I'll tell you about that some time. 

Talking Back to Facebook is going to be required reading for everyone in this house. I learned a whole lot there! It's a very readable book, easily grasped by a 13-year-old. I'm still tweaking how it will change behaviors and online presence, but I promise you it's made an impact. This one will be required teenage reading. ASAP.

I'm crawling through the The Shallows. I think it's a great book. I read it because my friend Linda told me that it's required reading this summer for every single student at UNC Chapel Hill. That's how important this book is. I think I might cave and buy the hard copy. It's just not a great audio choice. 

7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. I finished this one at 2:00 this morning. I wish I could put this book in the hands of every person in this country (and in Canada, too). The chapter on media dovetails nicely with my other reading. I'm going to force this family to read that one chapter, at least. But this book? This whole book? This book poses some very, very good questions. Jen Hatmaker is not Catholic. You might even find a post or two on her blog that sound a little anti-Catholic, which is kind of jarring because she's not the anti-anything type. I just get the sense she's not so much into liturgy or beautiful churches. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, read the book. She took seven areas of excess and focused on one a month, whittling away at--no, actually, taking a chainsaw to--ingrained habits of gluttony in our culture. I'm trying to figure a way to pour this book into everyone in this house. I don't think they'll read it; it will be one of mom's crazy ideas. But I'm starving to discuss it. The last chapter is on creating rest. Her take? Praying the Hours. (Yes, I know. That's liturgy. We are a very complex creation, aren't we?) I've talked a lot about praying the hours around these parts. I've never thought of it as rest. Verrrrry interesting. Especially at 2AM.

I have the sense that the conversations I will have about these books with people close to me in the next few weeks will be as life-changing as the conversations I had about this novel idea called "home education" all those many years ago.

I'm going to take a little break next week. There will still be posts here every day. If my mail and history are any indication, there are a lot of people searching schooly things. So, next week, I'll make it easy and put those things front and center. And I've got a guest hostess to come share books and sewing with you in this space on Thursday. I'm so exicted about that! Honestly, there have been some brutal internet moments in the last few weeks. Let me hasten to say that I am so very grateful for all your kindnesses. (It's that 20:1 thing). And I'm tired. The negatives? They just crush. The two people who commented around midnight last night? You are gifts. So I'm going to step away, rest, and pray. Think about all this reading. Read some more. And sew. Ah, yes. I'm quite sure I'll sew.

What about you? Sewing? Reading? A little of both?  Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and thREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and thREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr. 

       Include a link back to this post in your blog post or on your flickr photo page so that others who may want to join the needle and thREAD fun can find us! Feel free to grab a button here (in one of several colors) so that you can use the button to link:-).

Mommy cried all the way home...

This is a repost of a repost.

I posted it here in 2008, in response to the comment of a reader named Mary Beth. I'm posting again in response to Heather's comment on this post. Rare is the mom who hasn't wrestled with herself over whether to bundle a bunch of kids and take them church. You are so not alone:-).

In part, Mary Beth writes, "I am a young mom of a two year old and a three month old who has just happened upon your blog.  My husband was out of town so I had taken the two of them to church on my own one recent Sunday and the two year old's behavior was out of control.  I left after mass wondering where we were going wrong-how could I get him to behave during church and what exactly were reasonable expectations for behavior for a two year old during church?  Especially a particularly active two year old.  I was feeling very discouraged and really wanting a Mom Mentor."

Her words brought back this vivid memory, a column from early 1997:

Sometimes in this space, under this byline, I leave the impression that all is well in my household all the time and that we should all be striving for spiritual perfection. Or perhaps I lead you to believe that if all is not well, it can be resolved in 600 words or fewer to fit this space. Nothing could be further from the truth. (My apologies to the editor: this column is 859 words.)

A few months ago, my husband had worked 80 hours in a week and he was out of town on business. The baby was three weeks old, up to nurse several times at night. The two-year-old, who had had complicated surgery to repair his hand twice that month, was having nightmares that woke us all in the night, at different times than the baby woke us. It was Sunday morning and I was one exhausted mom with four tired, cranky children. I was so very tempted to skip Mass. Surely God would understand. But whatever gene controls guilt in cradle Catholics works very well in me. We went. And it was a disaster.

My first mistake was allowing the four-year-old to enter the pew first. That put him out of arm's reach. My second mistake was sitting so close to the front in a very small church with only one exit — in the back. I prayed we would make it through Mass.

The baby was an angel. The eight-year-old was an angel. Just as the homily began, the very active four-year-old bumped the overtired two-year-old (the one with the cast on his arm). The two-year-old "bumped" him back, cast and all. They both howled. Father stopped speaking and stared at me while I gathered my three youngest children and made my way to the back of the church and out the door. My cheeks burned as I felt what I was sure were disapproving glances. I left the children with an usher and went back just long enough to gather carseat and diaper bag and tell my eldest to go home with a neighbor. He tells me that as soon as I left the priest commented that it was a shame that the nursery wasn't open that day.

Since there was no place to go but outside and it was too cold for the baby, I put my children in the car and drove home. I was disappointed that I couldn't stay for Communion, humiliated by my exit, frustrated that I couldn't control my children all the time and very weary. Two extremely quiet, much chastened children sat in the backseat while Mommy cried all the way home.

My initial reaction was to scold and punish the boys. Their behavior was entirely inappropriate and they knew it. But then I began to reflect on what had happened. I was a young mom in church with several children that surely were God's blessings both to my husband and me and to the Catholic community. I thought about all the times in the past eight years that I have felt that events that should be opportunities for support and fellowship were occasions for judging parenting skills in light of personally held "absolute truths."

Committed Christians tend to be extremely conscious of the principles behind their parenting decisions. They spend a great deal of time discerning what is important in the effort to raise Godly children and they feel passionately about the choices they make. The problem is that not all Christian parents come to the same conclusions. There are many theories on child raising — many Godly theories. What is acceptable in one family may not be in another and both families are positive that their way is God's way. The disparity can make for a lot of judging and criticizing — both spoken and unspoken. It can also lead to much stress.

In her book Motherhood Stress, Deborah Shaw Lewis comments on this phenomenon in a chapter entitled "Everyone Knows My Job": "…I think our Christian community needs to realize that e unrealistic ideals of motherhood and family we sometimes espouse as `spiritual' can seem like one more stress on already stress-sensitive mothers. I have all these expectations; now it's my church or my minister saying I need to do this." Perfectly behaved children every Sunday is an unrealistic ideal.

The week after this incident, I went back to the same Mass (this took some convincing by my wonderful neighbor) People stopped to congratulate me on the new baby and comment on how well-behaved the boys were.

Their words were warm and comforting. Except for one woman, everyone who spoke to me that day was older; they had all raised large families of their own. Perhaps they knew from personal experience that this phase of motherhood is a mighty struggle and that I needed to feel welcome in my Father's house, despite my imperfections and those of my children.

I hope one day I can give the same support to another young woman; I certainly know how important it is.

Answering Questions: Dads Who Work Hard. Really hard.

I'm trying to answer some questions from the last few weeks. In this post, Greg from USA Today said:

I have read nearly all of your backposts and I just have a couple of questions:

1) How did you do it with your husband seemingly never at home to help?

2) Do you regret the decision to have him work 2 jobs at the same time?

Dear Greg,

1. We struggled through together, each granting the other grace. (Note, sometimes we failed miserably in this area, but we tried. We still try. And we're getting better at it as we get older.)  I really do believe that the biggest help is attitude. I never allow myself for a moment to think that I'm a single parent. That's self-defeating for me: If I think that way, I fail to see how blessed I am to have emotional support of a loving husband, to have financial support, to have reunions and homecomings and late night phone calls. Single moms have none of those things. I don't live with the pain of divorce or death. I live knowing that I am loved by an amazingly wonderful man.  I don't mean to candy-coat it. It was--and is--hard. Really hard. Especially with teenagers and toddlers together. But I'm not a single mom. Not by a longshot.

And it's downright insulting to him to consider myself as a single mom. He's working for US. That's the point. His job doesn't serve him; it serves our family. I wrote about that here: An Active Love.

Also, when we were younger, Mike's father was younger. Actually, he was older as fathers go. I remind myself that he was the same age when I was born as I was when Sarah was born. 42. That means that he was retirement age when our firstborn was born. And retire he did. For the first 20 years of our marriage, he was readily available to help me any way he could and he filled in a lot of those dad places--repairs, carpools, even vacuuming when I was pregnant. Repairs. Did I mention repairs? He's been unable to do those things in the past five years or so and I have felt his absence keenly. In many ways, he was the wind beneath my wings and I will always be grateful for his generous help.

Some women find that support in a military community of wives. Others find it in their mothers, mothers-in-law, or sisters. And some have truly super great local friends. I think it's pretty much impossible to do it without some adult support. I remember years ago, when Stephen was a baby. His doctor and I spent a long week together when my newborn was admitted at 2-weeks-old. The doctor had just joined the practice and his family was really young. He asked me what he could do to make his hours easier on his wife. I didn't hesitate to tell him to get her a cleaning lady. He was so surprised! But it was the first thing that came to my mind. Those early years are so physically intense. Another adult to bear those burdens, even a little bit, is a huge help. I used to wish that someone would offer to just come hold and walk with the baby for a half hour so I could fold laundry. That's such a simple--and desperate--wish. (Granddad could not bear fussy babies;-).

More often than not, there was no one. We muddled through--a crew of small children and me. Friends from the beginning drifted away as our family grew and we chose to homeschool; we just didn't have as much in common any more. Then we moved to a very new neighborhood with very few people and even fewer homeschoolers. And no Catholic homeschoolers at first. There was support in neighboring towns, but that involved driving and relinquishing naptime and sometimes, the tradeoff was more than I could bear. It was hard. And if there's a lesson in it for me--for us--it's to be on the lookout for people in my life right now who bear similar burdens. We can be a support to one another. We just have to be active about looking for ways to help and about reaching out and asking. All my asking was in my mind. I never spoke the words aloud to anyone but God. I should have.

Here are ten more essential tips for coping when dad's away.

2. Regret? I don't know. I don't really go there and neither does Mike. It was something we did together. Something that allowed us to live in this area, where all our extended family was when we made that decision. Something that allowed me to stay home. To homeschool. To write. He takes providing opportunities for his children very seriously and he saw building his career through both a "steady" job and freelance as the way to do it. He was right.  I trusted him then and I trust him now. I trust.

And so, no, I guess I don't regret. I don't think trust and regret can co-exist.

Now, I have a question for you, Greg. Did you strike up a conversation with Michael in the elevator at USA Today a few weeks ago? If so, thank you:-) He told me about it and I sort of thought he was just making it up because I was having one of those "I want to throw the computer out the window" kinds of days. You made me reconsider and saved my Macbook from certain doom;-).

Packing them off to College? A good cry. {And a Giveaway}

There is a phenonomenon happening in the housewares/linens department of every Target in the country. Just watch. There are middle-aged moms and late-teenaged kids in every aisle. The moms are fighting tears and trying to be overly cheerful. Some of the kids are, too. Or, perhaps, neither party is speaking to the other and they both are determinedly shopping with pursed lips. Target is a painful place this time of year. My children will attest to my all-out sobbing in the aisle with the graphing calculators a couple years ago.

I bumped into my friend Khristie in the linens department last spring right after acceptance letters were received. We got a headstart on the sobfest and stood there for nearly an hour crying talking. It's weird what linens can do to moms letting go. I think it's partly because we've so intentionally worked to create for them a nurturing home. (Um, I just made myself cry reading that link.)

We want so much to tuck ourselves into that trunk--to be sure they'll eat right, change their sheets, do their laundry, study, stay out of trouble. Oh, please, please stay out of trouble! Instead, we send them off without us and we stay home and pray in a way that we've never prayed before.

The kind folks at Catholic Embroidery are offering a little something you can tuck into that trunk as a reminder of your prayers--and a reminder for the college-bound to say theirs. 

It's two Standard (32" by 22") or Queen (38'" by 22") white 100% Egyptian cotton pillowcase boasting a 3" hem that are embroidered with a Mini Celtic Cross design along with an excerpt from St. Patrick's Breastplate: "Christ Before Me ~ Christ Behind Me". 

Sweet reminder. Sweet dreams.

 To qualify for the giveaway, simply leave a comment on the Catholic Embroidery blog or become a follower on their Facebook page and then come back here and tell me you did it. And if you're having meltdowns in the linen departments at Target, you can tell me that, too. I'm likely to cry with you and I promise, promise, promise to pray for you!

Catholic Girl's Almanac

Mary Beth asked if she could blog in this space today. Why, of course! That's a lovely idea.

I find myself:

::noticing God's glory

I'm not sure it fits into this category but I think it's amazing when a 3-year-old really believes she can be one of the Olympians when she grows up. 

::listening to 

Stephen telling Sarah again that the back of the couch is NOT a balance beam.

::clothing myself in 

Denim shorts and a navy blue lace top.

::reading

Joy in the Ordinary. I'll admit that my mom wanted me to read this one and I wasn't enthused. I was in a weird niche of not wanting to read. But, I loved this book! Review to come, I promise.

::thinking and thinking

about a post I want to write for this blog. Someone wrote mom and asked if I could write a post about something that is close to my heart. I want to make sure it won't offend anyone or hurt feelings.  I want it to be real and helpful.

::giving thanks for

a weekend where nothing seemed rushed and I could have a night with a friend for frozen yogurt and a night to eat out with grandparents. Both things I needed.

::pondering prayerfully

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.

~Audrey Hepburn

::carefully cultivating rhythm

This week will launch me into dance from 9am-1pm; and then again from 6pm-9pm.  I'm completely and totally ready for it. I've missed having a lot of dance. 

::creating by hand

I'm not too into sewing but I do love sharpie-ing (that's definitely not a word). So, since we have a white iPhone case, I think I'll try this.

::learning lessons in

Friendships. When you have to learn to let them go and when you have to learn to hold onto them. Also, how to pick the right ones.

::begging prayers

for all the people who have joined our weekend prayer community. 

for all the kids trying to figure out what their faith means to them.

for the kids contemplating college choices.

for Patrick, who was the first to arrive at a very bad car accident last week. He stopped to help and he has been haunted ever since.

::crafting in the kitchen 

Mom is trying to encourage me to give up wheat. I know she's right, but that's not an easy task.

::loving the moments

At dance. Sure, there's drama, but there's drama anywhere you go with teenaged girls. And I love these girls. They're always as happy to be there as I am and I'm happy to see them.

::planning for the week ahead

Michael is still in London; he's doing cool things. I hope you're checking up on him.

Christian and Patrick will be working and driving to dance I'm certain.

I'll spend most of my time at dance this week and when I'm not at dance I'll be sleeping, I hope.

You'll find Stephen and Nick watching some sport or another on NBC for the Olympics. Nick will mention every five minutes that ESPN would have done a far better job. And if you don't find them there, they'll be playing their own sport.

Katie is loving that dance has returned and she is taking every opportunity she finds to be in the studio working hard on pirouettes.

Karoline and Sarah will either be playing Gabby Douglas on the balance beam that Hilary gave them a while ago or playing Missy Franklin in the pool. 

::life through my lens

All pictures from my Instagram. 

Linking with the other ladies at Catholic Woman's Almanac.